Tech Services Happenings

Rachel won one of the 30 Florida Leaders and Managers (FLM) scholarships offered by the College of Information at FSU…yeah Rachel!!!  .  These scholarships were targeted at  future library leaders and managers who will serve diverse populations in Southeast Florida.  Rachel’s program is a Certificate in Leadership & Management, which is 15 credit hours.   The scholarship will cover student tuition and some travel expenses to attend the 2008 Florida Library Association meetings. 

Instant messaging

What is it?

Instant messaging (IM) is another form of real-time communication between two or more people based on typed text. The text is transmitted via computers connected over a network such as the Internet.Instant messaging allows instantaneous communication between people or parties at the same time, by transmitting information quickly and efficiently, attributing immediate reply. In certain cases IM involves additional features, which make it even more common to see the other party by using web-cams, or to talk directly for free over the internet.In contrast to e-mail, the parties know whether the other person is available. Most systems allow the user to set an online status or away message so peers are notified when the user is online, busy, or away from the computer. On the other hand, people are not forced to reply immediately to incoming messages. It is possible to save a conversation for later reference. Instant messages are typically logged in a local message history which closes the gap to the persistent nature of e-mails and facilitates quick exchange of information like URLs or document snippets.

How can it be used in a work place?

Tens of millions of the consumer IM accounts in use are being used for business purposes by employees of companies and other organizations.The adoption of IM across corporate networks outside of the control of IT organizations creates many risks and liabilities for companies who do not effectively manage and support IM use. Companies implement specialized IM archiving and security products and services like those from Secure Computing, Akonix, Surfcontrol, and ScanSafe to mitigate these risks and provide safe, secure, productive instant messaging capabilities to their employees.In answer to the demand for business-grade IM and the need to ensure security and legal compliance, a new type of instant messaging, called “Enterprise Instant Messaging” (“EIM”) .Instant messaging can be used in a company as a faster way of communication; yet, it is necessary to have a legal and secure IM system in place to avoid suit in the future. This system might help to save time and speed up companies’ total production.

Podcasts have become so popular that in 2005 the New Oxford American Dictionary selected podcast as the 2005 word of the year. Podcasts are downloadable audio files distributed over the Internet. Many libraries are creating podcasts in-house to distribute audio content about events, exhibits, bibliographic instructions, library collections etc. Many podcasts are available through RSS feeds and these can be played using aggregators such as Google Reader or Bloglines and using special software which can be downloaded from the Internet.Here are some resources to help you get started finding, listening and creating your own podcasts:

Directories for finding podcasts:
Podcast alley
Podcast.net
Yahoo Podcasts
Digital Podcast

Tools for creating your own podcasts:
Audacity
Odeo

Free software available for listening to your podcasts:
There are other freely available software for listening to podcasts called podcast aggregators. Podcast alley provides links and instructions for downloading these aggregators.